By taking some of the spirit of innovation she picked up as one of the founders of the experimental Group Theater and adding to it the sound showmanship she developed during her lengthy sojourn with the Theater Guild, Cheryl Crawford has repeatedly managed to combine originality with professional slickness in her productions. Such was the case with "One Touch of Venus," with the American Repertory Theater, and now with "Brigadoon," a musical fantasy beautifully set in the Scottish highlands by Oliver Smith and full of brilliant Agnes De Mille Scottish dances.

It is the kind of show, however, that needs a little time to get in the groove, and you would be wise to wait until the middle of next week if you want to see it at its best. New musicians, new theater, cuts and revisions, and adjusting timing to the vagaries of Boston audiences can throw musicals, which depend on speed and precision, into a kind of half-hearted tailspin, and "Brigadoon" shows symptoms of such ailments this week.

But if it's a matter of seeing it now or waiting to catch it in New York, go this week, because hits in New York these days are sold out through August and all the essential qualities of a hit are already apparent in "Brigadoon." It has style, it has good singers, it has excellent dancers, colorful costumes, some interesting music, and a load of fine lyrics. In the face of these qualities, its ordinary ending, some conventionally staged song numbers, and a couple of stock musical comedy characters become minor, if irritating defects.

Except for these compromises with the American stage tradition, the Scottish village of Brigadoon is a highly unique place to spend an evening. It is a phantom village, taken out of time by an ingenious miracle, into which two American travelers happen to wander one day. What happens to them provides the story, and when one of them accidentally kills one of the townsfolk, he precipitates the best scene of the show. This is the funeral, a wonderful mixture of dance and bagpipe music which is full of the fascination that such ceremonies in foreign lands often hold for us.

The cast actually manages to seem Scottish. From David Brooks, who sang "Evalina" in "Bloomer Girl," through Lidija Franklin and Virginia Bosler, two talented dancers in the best DeMille tradition, down to all the various people who hang around in the mob scenes, the show smacks of authenticity, an effect which is boosted by David Ffolkes' costumes. It is, in fact, this quality that is the show's outstanding virtue. It's a sort of "Okla homa!" set in Scotland.